Haste! Gencon Takeaways, Campaign Hiatuses, WotC Community Site and More!

Announcements

A big and many thanks to all who voted for us in the ENnies this year and to those whom came out to hang out with us at Gencon – it was a blast! Also, be sure to check out Chris Pramas’s Indiegogo project Cadaver Bone, it’s a very cool and very personal project (he’s using it to raise money to help pay for surgery).

Topics

Gencon Takeaways

Micah and I discuss things we did at Gencon this year differently than previous years and the things we learned from them. Hopefully some of our advice helps some of you. Also, what did you do differently this year?

Short Campaign Hiatuses

Having to put a game on hold always sucks, even if it’s just for a little bit. Micah and I discuss plans for doing so using his own Dark Heresy game as an example. Have you got any suggestions for us, and what would you do if yo uwere in this situation?

New WotC Community Site

Wizards of the Coast has recently refurbished their community portal site and it looks really great. The bad part is that despite it’s shiny new facade, the overwhelming disdain for D&DNext still seems to shine right through on the front page. We discuss community sites and more, tune in and give us your two cents!

Tip Corner

Micah gives us some updates on the reforging progress, tune in to see how it’s going!

Question

@Shammond42 asks us how to introduce a new player to a setting without a ton of boring exposition

re: Campaign Hiatuses – I’m lucky in that if I need a break from running a game, I have two other players who will happily step in with one-shot or short campaigns using other rules sets (one likes to run Doctor Who: Adventures in Time & Space and can run Pathfinder; the other likes Savage Worlds). But you’re correct, sometimes when you go on hiatus, you never get back to the main campaign. One thing I’ve found that helps is to plan when you’re coming back. We meet every other week, for example, so I’ll set up the calendar I use (here on Obsidian Portal) with the next date we’ll be returning to the main campaign. That way, people know in advance the break is only temporary. I think sometimes, if there’s no end-date to the hiatus, people will allow their attention, as it were, to wander away and lose interest. I know it’s happened to me, even when it’s a game I’m running!

When I had a hard time getting my gaming group together, we all rolled up characters for Toon. Mostly because it’s really rules-light, people could drop in and out per session, and it required very little prep time… The down side is that is needs a lot more ad-libbing (hey, it’s a zany toon world, right?) and the rules aren’t free. Cheap and fairly easy to find online, but not free.